Sidley snatch fortunate win

AN INJURY time finish from Dominic Clarke gave Sidley United a somewhat fortunate 3-2 win at home to Worthing United.

The victory on Saturday was their fourth in five league and cup games at Gullivers.

"We mugged them off really," admitted manager Liam Barham. "I even said to their manager 'we didn't deserve anything out of that game'. As for the overall display, I told them in no uncertain terms 'we require better than that', but it was nice to play so badly and just nick it at the end because that shows me we've got a lot of character. They made it very difficult because they got a lot of men behind the ball, but it definitely would have been two points dropped had we not won it."

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It looked for a long time as if they wouldn't win it, but an inspired finish after they changed to a three-pronged attack got them out of jail against a side in the bottom three of Sussex Division One.

Graham Morris levelled the scores at 2-2 with a smart 84th minute finish to a near post corner routine that also yielded a goal at St Francis Rangers recently.

And then Clarke broke Worthing hearts by slotting home a pass from Jimmy Watson, whose performance brought a reaction of "the whole team was bad apart from him" from his manager.

Sidley, who brought in Callum Wooller on the flank and shifted Chas Lister to right-back in place of the injured Paul Henty, had been behind, however, for all bar five of the 45 minutes immediately prior to Morris' strike.

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Danny Aguilera put Worthing ahead in the 37th minute and then back in front after 72 minutes with almost identical goals.

Jordan Wood briefly had The Blues back on level terms with a far post header in the 67th minute and Peter Baker had a volley brilliantly saved during the second period.